Dornier Do. 335 - Hitler's Steel Arrow 

I want 10 hours of Mark saying “Oberpfaffenhofen” please.

Can’t believe they’ve got footage of this aircraft, Wow!

So, a little bit of history here. From 1970 to 1980, my family lived in Reston, Virginia. While there, my father, a WWII veteran, told me a story (one of many) of a plane he saw near Munich after WWII. A much publicized air race was to be conducted between an American Mustang and a German plane from a local factory that had props in the front and back. He did not know what the aircraft was, but I knew immediately because of my aircraft model building hobby, and I told him it must have been the Dornier Do335. He described the air race thus - (forgive my recollection of these events which may not be completely accurate) - the planes were to take off from an airport (perhaps Oberpfaffenhofen), and when in position, fly from the air control tower at the airport to a nearby church steeple, then return - the first plane to complete the lap would be the winner. He stated he could see both aircraft for the entire race, and witnessed the German aircraft leave the Mustang in it's wake as it headed to the church steeple. The lead of the German plane appeared insurmountable, until it attempted to make the turn, at which point it began tracing an obscenely wide oval shape while the Mustang flew a comparatively tight course, and pulled ahead to make it back to the airport tower first. Unknown to both of us until my family and I took a vacation and visited the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia 5 years ago, it's very likely that this exact plane ended up in storage with the Smithsonian Museum system within a few miles of where we lived in the 1970's! Sadly, my father passed away in 2010, and never knew... There's a very good book I bought at the U-H Center which chronicles the U.S. effort to retrieve German aircraft for the purpose of testing. It mentions the two Do335 and has some very interesting information concerning its' rebuild by some of the original German technicians (who found the explosives which separate the prop had not been removed) as well as the flight to Cherbourg France (I believe), where once again the Do335 outraced the 2 Mustang escorts to their destination (you wouldn't think that would be a smart move on the part of the pilot).

Oh boy we're getting onto the rarer types of aircraft, hopefully you get around to digging up more info on the Arado 234 sometime Mr. Felton

Forget stealing the declaration of independence, I want to take that restored Do 335

"Might have changed Germany's fortunes if it had been introduced earlier in the war" That's Germany for ya

I like saying “Oberpfaffenhofen”, because it’s fun to say.

"Emergency fighter" *has a highly advanced jet engine propulsion*

Ive been to that museum and seen it. It’s a huge plane, very impressive. Absolutely dwarfs the Ar234 next to it - being a 2-engined bomber, it seems like it should be larger than the Dornier, but it’s much smaller

I was at the Dornier Museum last week and was surprised to see how little the Luftwaffe valued the Do 335's potential as an interceptor.

Eric 'Winkle' Brown really liked it , his autobiography is marvellous. He flew more types of plane than any other man , a record still not beaten.

Fascinating design. I have a little model of one on my bookcase.

The 335 has got to be my favorite of the wunderwaffe. Such a striking profile. Glad the Smithsonian saved one.

Only Mark Felton is willing to find these nuggets of history. You bring forth facts of little known glimses into the reality of such a situation of broad events. Thank you Mark.

Never clicked so fast in my life

Udvar-Hazy is spectacular. Been there twice. Allow a full day or, better, two. Do not bring young children or those not interested in aircraft and history. Wear comfortable shoes.

I did not realize that any Do.335 were left! Great video. As with everyone else, happy to see a new video.

I visited the smithsonian while on active duty in the USAF in the 1980's. I need to return to see what other aircraft have been added. Great museum.

Very nice item. I’m Dutch and have allways had the impression that the Do 335 is a successor of the Dutch Fokker D 23. I would not be suprised also because the Germaans could have studied the Fokker D23 after the invasion of France and the low countries in may 1940. See en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_D.XXIII ... more than coincidence, I think. The development by Fokker was delayed because of problems with the cooling of the second engine. Keep up the good work Mark

It's a shame it's so rare, it would make a great racer at Reno.

This is one of my favorite aircraft. Thank you so much for making this.

Quite often Germans design things that are amazing looking and are a amazing design too, and the Do 335 is one of those things.

"... bombing of the manufacturing plant cause a... delay."

I want to know the complete list of German Wonder weapons that was never completed, how much resources were spent and their impact, 1940 to 45,

My favorite prop fighter of all time! Thank you Mark, now I can show my family and friends this gorgeous bird instead of trying to explain her. Cheers!🍻

Tough to do proper flight testing while the enemy has air superiority over your own airspace. :D

One of the things I appreciate about these videos is how they set the service record straight about planes like this. There is art work out there at shows this plane mixing it up with bombers of the era. Keep up the good work.

Always worth watching. Thank you for keeping history alive Mark!

Awesome once again Mark cheers! ....Legendary English pilot Eric Winkle Brown flew one back from Europe to the UK .. he gives a great account in his book ... he also was the fella who landed a DH Mosquito on an Aircraft carrier

Very glad to see footage of it flying... it is one of the most interesting planes on display at Udvar-Hazy. It is *really* big... you can walk under the wing. The plane had problems with the rear lower stabilizer, you can see in the films that the takeoff used very little rotation, that part was always getting banged up.

The Udvar-Hazy annex in Chantilly is the place to go if you’re in DC area and want to see aircraft. The Mall museum has some cool aircraft, but IMO the Annex has a bigger, better collection. The docents are always very interesting to hear their stories. First tour I was on was guided by a B-29 bombardier, second tour was led by a retired 747 pilot/flight engineer who flew with Pan Am. Well worth the trip from downtown out to the Annex. The Do 335 is just one piece in their amazing collection.

Amazing aircraft, I’ve built a few of these as models in the past. Thanks for the information Mark. Superb as always. 😊👍🏻

It's surprisingly large in person. The entire museum at Dulles is worth the trip. The Heinkel 219 is actually smaller than I thought it would be. As is the Arado 234.

Im a simple man i see mark felton and hitler i click and watch 👌🏻👌🏻

My favorite aircraft. A pity not more survived the war, imagine seeing them at airshows or even airraces today. Also you didn't quite mentioned that the specifications and intended roles for the 335 were constantly changed - even by Hitler himself - which caused major delay in forcing the Dornier engineers to redesign again and again.

As soon as notification for this video hit my email, I was on it. Great info on a weird airplane.

Another definite advantage of the centerline push-pull design (relative to one propeller on each wing) is that you can lose one propeller entirely, and still have a controllable plane at a safe landing speed.

The Dornier 335 and the Horten 229, two extraordinary aircraft which thankfully never saw combat.

Always happy to see a new upload

Superb film Mark. Great footage. Eric "Winkle" Brown flew a captured 335, and was most impressed.

The plane was huge! Another great history lesson.

I’ve been waiting for a video! Thanks for another masterpiece Mark!

I'm very interested in these "Push-Pull" designs and Mark does mention Dornier's other sea plane designs using similar layouts. There is a design for a super-heavy transport of a similar size to Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" on record that has to be seen to be believed. It had eight engines units on the wings, four in front, four at the rear. Turns out that these engine units were in fact TWINNED engines running a single propellor - so that is in fact SIXTEEN engines in total!

My first encounter with the 335 was some years ago in a game called "Blazing Angels 2", by Ubisoft. It appears to be a truly great aircraft! Great material, mr. Felton! Thank you!

I had a 1/72 model of this aircraft when i was a young lad.

I’m near the air and space museum and it is pretty cool has a lot of of aircraft from WW1 to the Space race. And I think it has some helicopters to. So far the museum is pretty cool.

Check out the Chilian air force post war to see what the Luftwaffe could have been as a few German designers and Luftwaffe officers ended up there after the war

I've been watching your videos for a long time now and I just wanted to thank you for your hard work teaching us this cool information. How do you come up with such a variety of ideas for videos?

Great job, Mr. Felton. Amazing to see the advances in German technology, all through the war and up to its conclusion.

This plane should have been a prime candidate for some air races such as the one in Reno, Nevada. Mark? Nice video 👍

Cold glass of beer in hand and the latest Mark Felton video, doesn't get better than this! Thanks Mark

had a model of this when i was growing up. Thanks for all the wonderful footage that I have NEVER seen

This fascinating doccie must be one helluva scoop. Congratulations!

One of my first model kits, back in the 70s. Thank you!

I don’t know how you find the fascinating archival footage. Excellent work. Thank-you.

All day of flying the do 335 A0 in war thunder and now this video, a realy great day, perfect timing, thank you, thia just became my favourite airplane

You should be a producer for the history channel! Your content is always superb and the way you narrate your stories is amazing

There's one of this bad boys at the Smithsonian Air museum in Washington. It is huge when compared to any other fighter or heavy fighter of the period. And it looks like an apex predator ;) Edit: LOL, the last do335 of which Mark talks about is the one at the smithsonian. Should've waited for the end of the clip :)

Mark - thanks so much for your efforts. I love starting my day with a bowl of Cheerios and one of your educational videos. Please, keep it up.

Thank you Mark your videos always make me learn the way I want to learn thanks!

4th favorite plane in the world, thank you for making a video on it!

That Dornier Do 335 is a monster of an aircraft.. The Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum has it in their collection.

SEEN IT! It's a sight to behold. By far the shining jewel of the museum. A fine museum too!

Thanks Mark! The Do 335 story. Great video as usual!

"We need to think of a designation for this new aircraft" "How about V? It should be unique - I can't remember V being used for anything else."

This is my favorite aircraft really glad you made this video

I just want to say that I appreciate your videos. Some of the finest content of all youtube. Thank you.

Another excellent, informative and level-headed presentation, keep them up!

Had a model of the two seat version of it as a kid

911 likes. 0 dislikes Keep up the excellent work Mark. Love and support from Dublin, Irelans

Thanks a lot brother Mark, you provide a lot of unknown events those took place at a quite distant past.

You always have such great stories to tell! Thank you for sharing!

Nice interesting video! Never seen such a plane before, but classical German out of the box thinking.

The crash around Farnborough is incredibly infamous around my part (Fleet, just opposite Farnborough Airport). The pilot is somewhat a sad hero, considering there were no children in the school building he could have crashed into deliberately and survived. Must have been amazing to see that strange bastard over England, although the constant Meteors and Vampires flying out of there must have perhaps decreased that amazement.

nice video! Lots of footage I haven't seen before. One of my favorite planes of WW-2

I remember reading about this airplane, I'm glad I watched this video because now I know a lot more. Awesome video Mark !

After the amazing P38, this is certainly my favorite fighter. It would have made Kelly Johnson and The Skunk Works proud. It has a certain old world European feel to it.

Thanks again Mark! Just thinking there’s a certain irony here; the Do 335 may have finally satisfied the “Destroyer” concept-a heavy fighter.The Do 335 succeeding where the Bf 110/Me 210-410 fell flat.

Once again was simply blown away to see this thing in person. Such an amazing museum with so many one of a kind aircraft.

Excellent research and production as always. Most complete treatise I've seen on this aircraft. Thanks.

Another interesting subject. Thanks for the effort.

Yes my favorite aircaft ever is talked about by my favorite RU-vidr

Great story, thanks Mark for keeping history alive to us.

Mark, you and your staff do great work. Most informative. Thank you, Augie

Curtiss Ascender next? Similar configuration but with a wonderful nickname.

Mark, did you know that there was a version in development with the prop up front but a jet in the back?

brilliant work Mr Felton,Visually ,and technically ,this is the most formidable channel on this subject 🍀tx

Outstanding. Thank you, Dr. Felton.

The music reminds me of playing Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Good times. Also love your videos. The hard work you put into your historical videos is shown by it's production value, amazing.

If I remember correctly, when a pilot ejected explosive bolts in the rear propeller were supposed to explode and blow off the blades to minimise the risk of the pilot being shredded by the rear propeller disk. Also the upper tail plane was supposed to be blown off as well to avoid collision injuries.

Brilliant snapshot of a rare bird. Well done, Mr Felton!

Another great video Mark. Please keep them coming.

I love your videos whenever I see your brand new video it makes my day

Apparently when they sent the Do 335 to Dornier in Germany for restoration In 1975, They were surprised that the explosive charges built into the aircraft to blow off the dorsal fin and rear propeller prior to pilot ejection were still installed and active 30 years later.

Hey Mark: I'm an early subscriber that hasn't watched your excellent channel in several months. Having said that, I must say that that the audio quality of your voice is much better since I was last watching! I hope you see this message. Cheers!👍

Fantastic video Mark. Great images and commentary 👍🏼

Freeman Field, Indiana was a collection point for Nazi Aircraft sent to the USA after the war as trophies. They were demilitarized, repaired if possible, then used in post war airshows. After thier victory laps around the USA most were allocated to local air bases / museums as displays. Interestingly there is an underfunded archeology project underway on the old site to recover up to 100 WW2 era airframes buried on site. Additionally local residents claim their grandfathers buried entire unopened shipping containers of german spare parts, dyes, jigs and machine tools.

Always something interesting... Thank you.

Nice little documentary on a very obscure fighter. Well done. Glad one was saved in a museum.

Another excellent episode. Thanks for putting this on here. Best wishes.